I have seen another mediocre set of defending from our captain this summer again. two years ago in the world cup he was embarrassing, 2 years later he is just as bad. In between that he takes about 5-6 months off in madrid and plays seriously for a few weeks. Then score a goal late in CL and all is forgiven.

He is not a very good defender, specially now as it seems like he is losing his athleticism with time. His position is horrendous and his reflexes and speed can't allow him to catch him with his poor positioning.

I compare him with Hummels for example who also plays extremely high but position himself much much better and stays out of trouble and does not get so badly exposed by pacy player.

He didn't show up at all this season untilmlate January and it wasmok for everyone. Same with Kroos btw. It shows mental fragility to me and you can't win a marathon with these kinds of players most often. you can win sprints though...

You can add Benzema,Pepe,Varane,Marcelo,Carvajal and CR too. All of them didn't have a consistent season, they had good form at patches but that is not good enough to win the league. Benzemas second half of the season was abysmal while cr was crap in first half. Pepe was bad until last month, Marcelo was great only in first half, Varane was shit one game top other game...I think you just explained why we are not winning la liga. Too much inconsistent players. Looks like we are looking to add more inconsistent players. Lol

I disagree with you. Benzema was arguably our best player until February. He just isn't durable and, for some reason, our managers don't learn. Maybe it's because we keep changing managers so they can't use the data. As long as you understand that he isn't a 9 month player, but a 6-7 month one and you manage the season for him as such... he's fine. He got injured and never really recovered from it.

Varane and Carvajal play their hearts out. They had injury problems and inconsistent playing time. But they NEVER had months where they were poor. They had a game or two in a row... but always fought hard and learned from their mistakes.

I agree on Marcelo and CR... but CR is getting older and we know he pouts. As long as you stroke his ego, you know he'll show up. That's on the manager. As far as Marcelo... we had no alternative. So there was nothing you could do there.

@Valkyrja wrote:Not worried a bit, he always comes big when we need him.

He always puts his heart into it, when it comes to offensive headers. Has only improved marginally on defensive headers over the last decade

I think we've, for the longest time, had the problem that we sign these players that excel in athleticism, or reflexes in Iker's case - both attributes that tend to decline relatively early in a player's career, and then we don't let them go until it's too late. The same thing will probably happen with Bale, too.

Gks last longer than cbs though. Maldini of milan was an anomaly. A freak. Not the rule. Having said that though, i am not concerned with Ramos. He will have his idiot moments but as long as he is partnered with a competent cb he will be fine.

ramos will be ramos, he'll get at least 3 reds next season and a bunch of yellows, and mess up in a couple of games as well. one positive about him is he never lets these things bring him down. he missed that pk against bayern and neuer made fun of him, but he proceeded to take another in the euros that summer. at this stage, with his new contract and all, we have been forced to tolerate him. it is what it is.

for the record i don't think we had any best player after the first half of the season. i don't think a team that was so poor and bashed only the likes of getafe malmo et al can come out and say "this guy was our best guy". even at the end of the season, tough to make out who our best player was, seemed like a group effort. modric to me, though he didn't have the numbers was probably our most consistent. him or navas...don't think there was any 'best'

I am torn on this. He is and has been my favorite player for a long time now. I know I am biased and certainly do not agree with most of you on his flaws. He is and has been regarded by most as one of the best CBs out there.

However, I do agree that he plays the game with a bit of an edge and attitude that is good in terms confronting opponents, but at same time leads to too many yellows. He does lose concentration way too often which is IMO a serious flaw that must be overcome. He is a leader out there and generally speaking we need this, but as evident of him insisting in taking the penalty for seleccion, is another example of wrong decisions.

I feel most of our seleccion problems are attributable to him and Pique and it's mostly the concentration aspect. On one hand he was able to avoid a second yellow for most of 4 games thru better concentration and smarter decisions, but that getting caught flat footed is simply loss of concentration.

So in conclusion, I agree with you that there is cause for worry and a replacement simply is not in the cards. It seems to me that once Zidane took over, his performances were better, so I'm hoping Zidane can hold him to a higher standard. In other words, I don't believe he isn't talented / athletic enough to play well, it's all in his head and attitude.

@futbol_bill, as bad as him and pique were, they were not the only problems. your wing backs were awful, alba was on the right flank when the cross for the second goal was whipped in. juanfran did little to prevent the long ball. busquets, who is supposed to be this once in a lifetime defensive midfield that he's made out to be couldn't mark for shit.

all he did of notice was point to parts of the pitch his teammates are supposed to be (people actually rank his pointing skills as some sort of talent). when he was supposed to mark, chase down and actually defend, when his team didn't have the comfort of having the ball, he did nothing. that front line was a huge step down from prime torres and villa, but that happens in football, everyone goes through eras, and you guys had yours

back to ramos, as i said at least 3 reds, and we'll have the couple of games where he does absolute rubbish and we'll criticize him for being a blockhead, (i just hope its not a clasico or a knockout ucl game...) cos that's what he is. but we're stuck with it and will have to live with it. his passion and guts can never be questioned though, never....but that's ramos, he's always been more brawn than brains

Tito off topic but the issues re fullbacks is back to the tactics. When we have control of ball every one is pushing forward offensively including the CBs. If one of them ventures forward then Busquets takes their place. In other words we are not equipped technically to stop the counter or long ball. To add to the tactical problem the CBs are supposed to be concentrated for the long ball. Letting that Croatian player take the pass in front of them was a huge mistake. He simply passed or headed to the breaking wing and both CBs were caught flat footed. Sure Juan Fran should have been able to keep up with the winger, but speed isn't his greatest asset. Otherwise Juan Fran was getting all kinds of praise for his play (offensive) and so was Alba. Our fullbacks are really there for offense. The defense is really the two Cbs and Busquets. Flawed tactics perhaps. I think they would be better to play three CBs with this philosophy like Italy does.

@futbol_bill wrote:Tito off topic but the issues re fullbacks is back to the tactics. When we have control of ball every one is pushing forward offensively including the CBs. If one of them ventures forward then Busquets takes their place. In other words we are not equipped technically to stop the counter or long ball. To add to the tactical problem the CBs are supposed to be concentrated for the long ball. Letting that Croatian player take the pass in front of them was a huge mistake. He simply passed or headed to the breaking wing and both CBs were caught flat footed. Sure Juan Fran should have been able to keep up with the winger, but speed isn't his greatest asset. Otherwise Juan Fran was getting all kinds of praise for his play (offensive) and so was Alba. Our fullbacks are really there for offense. The defense is really the two Cbs and Busquets. Flawed tactics perhaps. I think they would be better to play three CBs with this philosophy like Italy does.

That only works for italy because the back three they have has played in the 3 cb backline system for years. a 3 cb backline is quite different compared with the usual back 4.

Ugh, Ramos. With respect to the dynamic duo of disaster that is Pique and Ramos, one of the many reasons it simply would never work out well regularly is that neither looks like they listen to each other. They also go about defending as two completely separate entities instead of one unit made up of two men. Ramos plays exactly like he would at Madrid and Pique defends exactly like he would at Barcelona.

Neither would actually play according to what Spain needs which is a lovely recipe for what we saw in 2014 and last week. It also doesn't help Juanfran is a slightly better version of Arbeloa, Alba a shitty version of Marcelo, 3 slow midfielders, two wide men who don't actually track anything and suicide "attacking" tactics that don't attack or defend well.

With respect to Madrid affairs, as long as Pepe and Varane are apart of the club, I can feel a little at ease that we at least have 1 CB who knows how to be a proper CB. No sense worrying about Ramos, he is what he is.

Doc... problem with Ramos is that he can implode at any freakin time. It's random. So whenever he has to do something, you're scared to death At least with Pepe and Varane, you can tell they're having a hard time at a certain facet that day and adjust to it (Pepe matured into it late; he was like Ramos).

But Ramos does have heart and he can play at a WC when his head is straight... and that head of his gets crooked very often.

That should read "a part" and not "apart". Yes, one of the issues with Ramos is exactly what you described. I usually call it "Ramos time" (would definitely like the German translation to that because reasons). But we as fans shouldn't waste worry on Ramos, he is what he is. 80% of the time he is gonna f up and cause serious problems to our heart and brain. The next 20% is him scoring goals in UCL KO stages and finals.